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In a previous article, you read about a virtual make-up vendor that takes a picture of you and puts various types of make-up on your digital image in real-time, but have you heard about a vendor that will let you try on clothes digitally? This vendor is called Wearable Clothing and was developed by Urban Research. As a trial test, they installed one of these digital units in Ikebukuro Parco department store. As long as there’s space, electricity and internet access, this unit will work. Wearable Clothing uses a camera that scans the user’s body and allows them to browse through Urban Research products. If the user likes a product, they can purchase it online.

The unit that was installed in Ikebukuro was made available to shoppers between June 17th to 30th. It is also available in three different languages; English, Chinese, and Japanese. There are similar machines in several other places including other departments stores, train stations, and airport terminals. Urban Research said that they’re planning on installing at least six virtual fitting vendors in 2014, and to have around 100 units by 2020, including overseas. This brand has a showroom in Taipei and Urban Research plans on pushing it to Asian markets in the future. It’s a lot cheaper than actually opening up branches in new regions so they thought, “Why not”.

It’s no surprise that this Wearable Clothing system also uses a Kinect since Kinect is the software of choice for these reality virtual fitting units. Urban Research took around one year to develop the Wearable Clothing unit with a web development company and spent at least ¥20 million (about $200,000) to create two units.

Wearable Clothing responds to the users’ movements in real-time as they are trying-on different items and the cool part is that it will give the user a virtual experience of the texture of the clothing materials. Time Out blogger had said, “It’s way more satisfying than fiddling with zips and buttons and bad lighting in a real dressing room.” If you like a product that you tried on via the Wearable Clothing system, you’ll be able to add it to your basket and use the QR code that will be printed out to access the brand’s online store to complete your purchase of that product.

Do you think that these virtual vendors will be successful enough to actually replace staffed stores?